Tommy Douglas’s Status as Historic Figure Under Review by Federal Department for His Beliefs on Eugenics

Tommy Douglas is surrounded by supporters as he arrives at the Palace Theatre to address an NDP rally in Hamilton, Ont., on June 11, 1968. (The Canadian Press)

The late founding leader of the federal New Democratic Party, Tommy Douglas, is under review as a national historic figure by the Directory of Federal Heritage Designations because he wrote a thesis paper for his master’s degree on eugenics.

The Historic Sites and Monuments Board is examining Mr. Douglas’s “controversial beliefs and behaviour,” according to his profile on the government department’s website. Mr. Douglas was officially designated as an historic figure on June 6, 2016, but that is now “identified for review,” according to the board.

“A review can be triggered for one of the following reasons—outdated language or terminology, absence of a significant layer of history, factual errors, controversial beliefs and behaviour, or significant new knowledge,” indicates an entry on Mr. Douglas’s page.

Dominique Tessier, spokesperson for the board, told Blacklock’s Reporter it was “noted that Tommy Douglas wrote a master’s thesis on eugenics.”

“He later changed his views on this topic,” she said. According to the board, Mr. Douglas was an early advocate of sterilizing unwed mothers.

Mr. Douglas’s master thesis, written in 1933 while he was at McMaster University, was titled, “The Problems of the Subnormal Family.” At the time, he advocated for the government to take action against those with a “low mental rating” or those who have “moral standards below normal who are delinquent,” a list which included unmarried mothers and women “subject to social disease,” otherwise known as prostitutes. The list also included people who were “incurably diseased,” “mental defectives,” and those “so improvident as to be a public charge,” in other words people who made reckless decisions or displayed undisciplined behaviour.

Mr. Douglas served as Saskatchewan’s premier from 1944 to 1961, leading the only Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government in Canada. By 1944, he had abandoned his ideas about eugenic policies and declined to act on two reports that recommended sexual sterilization in the province.

Mr. Douglas made Saskatchewan the first province in Canada to implement publicly funded hospital insurance, which laid the foundations for a national Medicare program.

In 2019, the federal government devoted a plaque in Regina to recognition of the former premier. At the time, the board described him as a “skilled politician, witty orator, and advocate for social justice.”

In 2019, federal cabinet issued a directive that mandated “a careful review of existing designations and plaque texts” for any content that was deemed offensive. Since that directive, the Framework for History and Commemoration was implemented, and the review of Mr. Douglas as a historic figure is the first one of its kind.

The Monuments Board is also reviewing about 2,100 historic commemorations dating back from 1919 for “outdated or offensive terms or word choices” and “an absence of a significant layer of history most frequently associated with the exclusion of Indigenous peoples.”

“Nothing can be immune from review. Every designation can be re-evaluated,” the board stated in a 2019 report, titled “Careful Review of Existing Designations.”